After two major cyclones hit southern Malawi in four months, rural communities faced devastating crop losses and infrastructure damage during the leanest season of the year. In the aftermath of events like these, local leaders, government agencies, and global aid organizations need to know what’s happening on the ground in real time. Where is the situation most dire? Where will relief efforts make the most difference? And how do communities build resilience to withstand the next crisis?
“Data can answer these questions and save lives,” said Joanna Upton PhD ’15, a senior research associate in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, part of the SC Johnson College of Business. “In fact, it already has.”
Since 2018, Upton has partnered with Catholic Relief Services and others to develop a rapid feedback monitoring system (RFMS), a platform that employs Malawi residents to collect information about food security from the same households every month. Through a large international network ranging from the World Bank to the Malawi University of Science and Technology, the program provides data and evidence that nonprofits, local leaders, and researchers use to respond to humanitarian emergencies, develop policies, and build resilience to future shocks. Following on early successes as a pilot program in Malawi, the platform has been adapted and launched in other countries, including Madagascar.
“These rural communities are highly vulnerable to climate shocks like droughts or floods, to annual lean seasons, to pests, and to macroeconomic disruptions that affect labor markets and food prices,” said Upton. “Understanding how these shocks affect well-being—and how to design policies and responses that build resilience—requires exactly the kind of high-frequency, grounded data collection and applied analysis that our project enables.”
But in January, federal funding for the project, which came through the U.S. Agency for International Development, ended. Now, the program’s future—and all the research based on it—is in jeopardy.
“All of the data collection systems for early warning and for food security assessment are disabled,” and ongoing research has been abruptly interrupted, Upton said.
Read more about food insecurity in Malawi on the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business website.
Alison Fromme is a writer for the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.